A man searches through the rubble of his house trying to locate his family, Port au Prince, Haiti, Jan. 27, 2010.

You can see some of my recent work from Haiti here.

# 7: Platon

Photos: Platon/ The New Yorker

I could listen to Platon telling the anecdotes he has collected over the years photographing the famous and powerful for hours. Check out the series of portraits of world leaders he did for the New Yorker. Unfortunately, Angela Merkel is missing – I would have loved to see her in there, but it wouldn’t have been her style. To make a bet: Platon’s work will be awarded in the World Press Photo Contest.

# 6: New German Photojournalism

Andy Spyra's website

Photojournalism in Germany in the last years has been heavily influenced by Ostkreuz an agency from Berlin. To sum up its style: brownish, desaturated medium format photography – rather unemotional. I feel that there’s been a new trend recently, I can connect better with.

To see what I mean, check out Andy Spyra’s work. He comes from a small, boring and probably really uninspiring town in Germany – yet he produces very inspiring photography. He has devoted himself to documenting life in the Indian part of Kashmir and has been quite successful.  He has been shortlisted for the Magnum Expression Award and received the Getty Images Grant. But most importantly he has photographed one of my favorite images of all time.

# 5: Consequences by NOOR

Consequences by Noor

Noor has become the agency with the highest proportion of photographers that I admire. Among them are Pep Bonet, Francesco Zizola and Yuri Kozyrev.  When I saw Bonet’s work for the first time on the Photokina some years ago it opened my eyes for a more artistic approach to photojournalism. Kozyrev is definitely one of the best conflict photographers at present and Zizola has made a great impact on the use of color in contemporary photojournalism.

Consequences, a joint project by Noor photographers on the impact of climate change, shows that a photo collective can really be much more than just the sum of its members. (I wrote more about Consequences here.) Way to go.

# 4: Young talents

Maybe it’s only my perception, but I feel like there have never been so many young photographers producing amazing photography. Some of my favorite discoveries of this year are Alejandro Chaskielberg, and Adam Ferguson.

Alejandro Chaskielberg's website

I still haven’t figured out what kind of photography Alejandro Chaskielberg actually does: fashion, art or journalism? But I think it’s the freshest approach I’ve seen in years.

Adam Ferguson's Website

To call Adam Ferguson a discovery is misleading since I’ve known his work for three years, but he has really made his breakthrough this year. His photographs from the Afghanistan have graced Time Magazine covers two times this year and Chris Morris called them the best covers he has seen in a decade. To make another bet: Adam’s work will be awarded in the World Press Photo Contest.

# 3: Not whining about the state of the industry

Well, yes, the internet is a big threat to traditional media outlets. Newspapers and magazines are cutting staff – that is if they don’t file for bankruptcy. It’s become harder and harder for photographers to make a living, because competition is getting better and the market (the one where you get paid) is shrinking. The media is degenerating into thousands of niche publications and the integrating power of mass media vanishes. You could complain about it forever or you could just grab the opportunities that come with this technological revolution and produce high quality work people want to pay for – online and offline.

For example, the German weekly newspaper Die Zeit has never sold so many copies as this year.  Why? Because it’s good and because it provides something you don’t look for on the internet: long, well researched and well written features. On the internet Die Zeit tries to follow the same strategy. Instead of the continuous stream of news, it tries to declutter news and focus on specific subjects.*

# 2: The NYT Lens Blog

NYT Lens Blog

Founded in May this year, the NYT Lens Blog has quickly made it to my favorite websites. It’s just how a photo blog should look like: easy navigation, clean layout and amazing photography. Lens shows the dedication of the NYT when it comes to high quality photojournalism and it has strengthen my belief that even in today’s economic environment of the news media unique photojournalism has its place.

# 1: Burn Magazine

Lance Rosenfield's "Thirst for Grit" on Burn Magazine

David Allan Harvey must be the most selfless, optimistic and encouraging person in the photo industry at present. He is not only a great photographer but also a great teacher. In 2008 he has initiated the Emerging Photographer Fund, a 10.000 $ grant for a journalistic or artistic photo project, and founded Burn Magazine. They can be seen as two branches of one mission: supporting young inspired photographers. Burn has become the place on the internet to dsicover and discuss contemporary documentary photography.

*Despite all this praise, I don’t agree with the photo policy of Die Zeit. They often manipulate images. To mark the manipulation they always put an [M] in the caption so you can see if an image is manipulated, but you can’t see what they manipulated. Did they just change from color to black and white or did they change the content?

This looks neat. A digital reader specially designed for visually driven  magazines. Comes from Berg a London based technology design company and Bonnier publisher of American Photo, Ride BMX and various other titles.

Australian photographer Adam Ferguson photographed in Paris, France, July 2006. Photo: Daniel Etter

Three years ago I interned at VII in Paris. One of my cominterns was Adam Fergusson. He had a small portfolio back than. I can remember some nice portraits but no bigger stories. His sister called him rockstar without a band. Adam has found his band: VII. He got on the VII mentor programm this year and Photo Distict News named him one of 30 emerging photographers to watch. More impressive are the spreads he had in TIME recently, The War in AfghanistanUp Close for example. The reason I’m posting this? There’s an interesting interview with Adam over at 100eyes.org

Here is a beautiful slideshow by Anthony Suau talking about the biggest story of his life: The Fall. (Via dvafoto.com)

Monastery in Tblisi, Georgia. Photo: Paolo Pellegrin/ Magnum/ Georgian Spring

As magazines and newspapers cut costs for production, competition among photographers is rising and publication on the internet  doesn’t generate enough income, photoagencies try to approach new ways to fund and publish projects. The most recent examples are Consequences by Noor and Georgian Spring by Magnum.

In the forerun to the United Nations Climate Change Conference eight Noor photographers cover current affects of climate change from Greenland over Sudan to Canada. Among others Oxfam, Greenpeace and Nikon are partners for this project. (Edit: Funding only comes from Nikon.) It will first be published exhibited during the Conference.

Blackfields, Poland. Photo: Pep Bonet/ Noor/ Consequences

One year after the war in Georgia ten Magnum photographers went there for a project called Georgian Spring. Beautiful images of an equally beautiful country. The website is really sophistcated showing the skill of the Magnum multimedia department. Georgian spring was funded by the Georgian Ministry of Culture with support of President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Consequences and Georgian Spring are not limited to the internet. It’s just one outlet among many. Magnum published a book and there will be a travelling exhibition for both projects along with publications in traditional media. I think this is a great development and might well show the future for ambitious photojournalistic projects.

But as great as these projects may look, journalistically they are questionable. Georgian President Saakashvili will surely not fund anything that’s overly critical of his policies. And if you work for NGOs (regardless of how good their aims may be) you won’t publish anything that’s contradictory to their mission. You can basically say that Consequences and especially Georgian Spring are very sophisticated public relations projects. (Edit: I stand corrected, this doesn’t apply to Consequences. See Nina’s comment below.)

I guess for Magnum, VII, Noor and many other agencies this might be the only way to survive in the coming years. And the image of journalistic independency is probably just that – an idealistic image. Now the influences are just more obvious. I think it’s okay as long as it is clearly stated who funded these projects, as long as you don’t sell it as independent journalism or – if published in a journalistic context – put it into critical perspective in the accompanying text.

In any case, I enjoyed looking at them.

One of the most asked question by starting photographers or journalists in general is: How to get access? How to earn trust? How to let people be photographed in the most intimate situations? Robert Capa always used to respond to these questions: “Like people and let them know.” The best answers are often the simplest.

Bieke Depoorter, a young photographer from Beligium, just won the Magnum Expression Award for her work on the Russian hinterland called “On mania” or “With me”. But her work is really about getting access. She can’t speak Russian so she carried a little paper with some russian words  scribled on it with her and showed up at peoples’ doors.  The note read:

“I am looking for a place to spend the night. Do you know people who would have a bed, or a couch? I don’t need anything in particular, and I have a sleeping-bag. I prefer not to stay in a hotel, because I don’t have a lot of money and because I want to see the way people live in Russia. Could I stay at your place, perhaps? Thank you very much for your help!”

The result is pretty amazing, I’d say. See for yourself here.